Richard Lawler

The New York Times reports Trump signed an EO Thursday evening to “establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile” consisting of crypto assets owned by the Treasury forfeited in criminal or civil cases.

The 25 percent tariffs Donald Trump announced for Canada and Mexico just a couple of days ago have been quickly pared back. First there was a 30-day exemption for automakers and now, as Bloomberg and the New York Times report, goods from either country covered by the USMCA trade agreement are also exempt, at least until April 2nd.

Earlier this week, Donald Trump said DOGE is “headed by Elon Musk,” despite DOJ lawyers arguing he isn’t its administrator or even an employee. Now Politico reports he told the top members of his administration that Musk “was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy.”

As part of the DOGE-directed reshaping of the federal government, General Services Administration listed more than 400 federal properties “designated for disposal” earlier this week, before replacing them with a “coming soon” message.

SpaceX recently listed some explanations for how its seventh Starship flight test ended, and now another report is coming. Flight 8’s launch and Super Heavy booster rocket separation was successful, with the booster returning to the pad.

An Xbox Support page describes “Bluetooth connectivity and performance with some older non-Xbox devices,” that might result as a part of the 5.23.5.0 firmware, and sas owners can now revert the update, but that’s about it.

Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël has said that Ariane 6 is key to “giving Europe an autonomous access to space,” despite delays that pushed its debut from 2020 all the way to 2024.

During the State of the Union address Tuesday night and in a post on the White House website published Wednesday, Donald Trump and his administration tried to claim that the government was spending millions on “transgender animal experiments.”

This report from The Information says that OpenAI investors have been told the company plans to charge as much as $20k monthly for PhD-level research agents at the high end. Lower tiers could cost $2,000 or $10,000 per month, which certainly helps its $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro subscription look cheap by comparison.

Test administrator ProctorU / Meazure is already facing a lawsuit after California’s February 2025 Bar Exam “was an unmitigated disaster,” full of crashes, bugs, and delays. It was the state’s first try at a “hybrid, two-day remote and in-person exam without any components of the national bar exam,” according to Reuters.